Majority Opinion Quotes

• Truth always rests with the minority, and the minority is always stronger than the majority, because the minority is generally formed by those who really have an opinion, while the strength of a majority is illusory, formed by the gangs who have no opinion - and who, therefore, in the next instant (when it is evident that the minority is the stronger) assume its opinion ... while Truth again reverts to a new minority.

  Soren Kierkegaard

  Workout, Truth, Inspiration

  "The Diary of Soren Kierkegaard" by Soren Kierkegaard, pt. 5, sct. 3, no 128, 1850.

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• The minority is always stronger than the majority, because the minority is generally formed by those who really have an opinion.

  Soren Kierkegaard

  Stronger, Majority, Minorities

  "The Diary of Soren Kierkegaard" by Soren Kierkegaard, pt. 5, sct. 3, no 128, 1850.

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• Truth is never determined by majority opinion, but by divine revelation.

  Steve Lawson

  Majority, Divine Revelation, Determined

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• While majority opinion may not take kindly to forms of modern art, that same majority has also been hostile to most original and radical innovations, such as automobiles or airplanes or transatlantic cables or Protestantism or the theory that the earth is round and not flat.

  Alfred H. Barr, Jr.

  Art, Airplane, Innovation

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• Courage is a terribly important value. It means you don’t run away when things are tough. It means you don’t turn away from a friend when he or she is in trouble. It means standing up against the majority opinion... There’s a lot of people who won’t wear it on their sleeve, or display it through some heroic act. But courage is having the strength to do what’s honorable and decent.

  George H. W. Bush

  Running, Courage, Mean

  "Patriarch of a Political Dynasty". The Academy of Achievement Interview, www.achievement.org. June 2, 1995.

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• The first opinion the Court ever filed has a dissenting opinion. Dissent is a tradition of this Court... When someone is writing for the Court, he hopes to get eight others to agree with him, so many of the majority opinions are rather stultified.

  William O. Douglas

  Writing, Eight, Liberty

  The New York Times Interview, October 29, 1973.

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• Too often an institution serves to bless the majority opinion. Today when too many move to the rhythmic beat of the status quo, whoever would be a Christian must be a nonconformist.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Christian, Moving, Majority

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• I created hoaxes. I confronted and challenged the majority opinion. I attacked, humiliated, and criticized the voice of the corporate mainstream media.

  Joey Skaggs

  Media, Voice, Hoaxes

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• There is no test of literary merit except survival, which is itself an index to majority opinion.

  George Orwell

  Literary Merit, Survival, Majority

  George Orwell, Keith Gessen (2009). “All Art Is Propaganda: Critical Essays”, p.320, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• It is only because the majority opinion will always be opposed by some that our knowledge and understanding progress. In the process by which opinion is formed, it is very probable that, by the time any view becomes a majority view, it is no longer the best view: somebody will already have advanced beyond the point which the majority have reached. It is because we do not yet know which of the many competing new opinions will prove itself the best that we wait until it has gained sufficient support.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Wisdom, Views, Waiting

  "The Constitution of Liberty". Book by Friedrich Hayek, Chap. 7 : Majority Rules, 1960.

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• Some of our problems can no more be solved correctly by majority opinion than can a problem in arithmetic and there are few problems that cannot be solved according to what is just and right without resort to popular opinion.

  Henry Latham Doherty

  Justice, Majority, Opinion

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• It is only because the majority opinion will always be opposed by some that our knowledge and understanding progress... it is always from a minority acting in ways different from what the majority would prescribe that the majority in the end learns to do better.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Understanding, Progress, Acting

  "The Constitution of Liberty". Book by Friedrich Hayek, Chap. 7 : Majority Rules, 1960.

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• The conception that government should be guided by majority opinion makes sense only if that opinion is independent of government. The ideal of democracy rests on the belief that the view which will direct government emerges from an independent and spontaneous process. It requires, therefore, the existence of a large sphere independent of majority control in which the opinions of the individuals are formed.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Independent, Government, Views

  "The Constitution of Liberty". Book by Friedrich Hayek. Part I: "The Value of Freedom". Chapter 7: "Majority Rules", 1960.

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• Courage means going against majority opinion in the name of the truth.

  Vaclav Havel

  Courage, Mean, Names

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